Letters To The Editor

April 07, 1995

LANDFILL'S BLEAK PICTURE

Reference the expansion plans of the Sanifill landfill in Hampton:

The deeper I dig, the bleaker it gets. The winds will carry the odors over the Peninsula. There are rats. The traffic on Big Bethel Road will progressively worsen. The school buses from northern Hampton will have to travel this gantlet twice daily. The ground water may be contaminated, but there is no EPA impact study.

Strange that the only City Council member to be seen or heard from is Linda McNeeley. Why aren't your state representatives interested in the concerns that the landfill expansion is creating?

When the city purchased the land from Williams Corp. in 1986, it was obviously planning for its long-term waste needs. Yet the site is in an area that has the most growth potential. No apparent provisions were made by the zoning or planning commissions to establish a buffer zone.

The city manager and the council are supposed to establish adequate dialogue with the citizens. Do you think they made their intentions clear? Is the impact this will have on Newport News, Langley Air Force Base, York County and Poquoson residents evident to them?

All you have between you and disaster is the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Is the DEQ going to proceed in the best interests of the citizens of the Peninsula and the environment or of local government and big business?

Please write by April 14 to Steve Dietrich, DEQ, 4900 Cox Road, Glen Allen, Va. 23060 asking for a delay of approval on Part B of Solid Waste Facility 580 until all technical, regulatory, environmental, legal and quality-of-life issues can be investigated and reviewed by all affected parties.

Denise M. Beavers

Hampton

SACRIFICING GOODWILL

I live less than a mile from the Sanifill landfill site. As a Newport News resident, I have no standing in the state's and Hampton's decisions to permit the expansion. However, Hampton's present and projected solid waste disposal trends indicate that there is no compelling need to expand the landfill vertically to a maximum height of 340 feet.

Residential waste generated by Hampton, Poquoson and York County is burned in Hampton's steam-generating facility on Wythe Creek Road. This has been the practice since the early '80s. The cost of residential collection and disposal should not be impacted by an increase in tipping fees at the landfill.

The amount of municipal commercial and bulk waste that required landfilling increased by 11 percent between 1993 and 1994. Sanifill has projected a yearly disposal rate of 640,000 tons - a 1,000 percent yearly increase in its average tonnage from all sources for the past two years.

Sanifill's 392-acre site is owned by the city of Hampton. In order for Sanifill to be financially viable with its new expansion, it will have to compete for trash from other states as well as other Virginia localities.

Perhaps Hampton officials are united in their support of this expansion because they envision a mega-landfill as an economic development tool.

If city officials are willing to sacrifice goodwill between the city and its residents and its neighbors by approving the project, then the landfill isn't the only thing that smells.

Donnie R. Tuck

Newport News

`BIZFACT' MISLEADING

Reference the March 21 Knight-Ridder Tribune "BizFact" titled "Tax Breaks for the Rich":

It claimed that only 3.2 percent of taxpayers in the $10,000-to-$49,999 income bracket would benefit from the capital-gains tax cut proposed in the Republican "Contract with America."

While I question the accuracy of those numbers, right or wrong, they confuse the issue; what really matters is the number of taxpayers having incomes of less than $50,000 who would benefit from a reduction in the capital-gains tax rate. In fact, more people in that income group would benefit than would "rich" people, because there are so many more "middle-income" people. This was supported by John Cunniff's March 26 "Business Mirror" column; he wrote: "Official data show 55 percent of taxpayers reporting long-term capital gains earn $50,000 or less." Case closed.

This Knight-Ridder Tribune "fact" is a prime example of how legitimate-sounding organizations, such as Citizens for Tax Justice, disseminate propaganda for the Democrats. Democrats' obsession with envy has led them to blindly oppose a capital-gains tax cut because the "rich" would benefit - even though more middle-income people would benefit from the lowered rate. This is the kind of ideological silliness so characteristic of liberal Democrats. This BizFact was crafted to denigrate Republicans by promoting the Democrats' divisive "politics of envy." It is deceptive and intellectually dishonest.

Chase P. Hearn

James City County

NO NEED TO TRAIN

Reference the March 28 article "School standards draw fire, praise":

I cannot understand this statement: "The cost of the new standards depends on how much training teachers will need to implement them." Anyone who has a college degree and a teaching certificate should be able to implement any and all of these standards regardless of their major.

How many remedial classes do our teachers need to be able to locate the Rocky Mountains or to identify George Washington or Mahatma Gandhi?

Patricia Anne Smith

Newport News

ALMOST A SOLUTION

Maybe we could appease those opposed to changing VJ Day to VP (Victory in the Pacific) Day by then changing VE Day to VG (Victory over Germany) Day to make up for it. Then everybody would be satisfied. Well, except the Germans.